The resolution is the least of the problems too - it’s not even IPS (at least on my otherwise-excellent X220). Perhaps one day I’ll do the surgery to change it out though…
I have an X220 that I put an IPS panel into. It's definitely nicer than TN but once you've used a modern laptop with a 4K screen (with HiDPI scaling), anything less looks really dated.
A lot of the old Thinkpads were great in the context of their time. But I actually had to look for the date on this article. It’s hard to take an argument seriously that this laptop is actually the laptop of choice today for the vast majority of use cases. (I still have an x270 at home I think with Linux loaded but I rarely use it.)
Yeah the 2010 Macbook Pro is clearly superior in every regard. It had 32 more pixels heightwise, so that's at least 2 lines more code on your screen too.
The primary use case for that VGA port was projectors installed in conference rooms. At its time in many cases the only thing you got was some VGA cable.
Thinkpadism is really just "things used to be better", as evidenced by the models then-decried by thinkpadders as low quality flexing plastic garbage being hailed as "built like a tank" today, simply because it's old now. Just wait, eventually the X230 and X240 will be called "some of the greatest thinkpads ever made, built like tanks".
I have an X240, I don't think I'll ever be able to love it as a true ThinkPad when Lenovo came up with that abominable trackpoint without physical buttons.
My current gen P14s has awful keyboard keys. There's barely any travel whatsoever so while I agree with your premise, things really did used to be better...
Hot swappable batteries on the X240 was quite the rush
> Thinkpadism is really just "things used to be better", as evidenced by the models then-decried by thinkpadders as low quality flexing plastic garbage being hailed as "built like a tank" today, simply because it's old now.
I agree with that one, those models had their build quality issues and for today's standards they are simply outdated overall.
> Just wait, eventually the X230 and X240 will be called "some of the greatest thinkpads ever made, built like tanks".
I don't think so for those models. The X230 is more or less just a refresh of the X220, except for the "new" keyboard. The X240 had no physical trackpoint buttons but instead that universally hated "clickpad" (did only last one generation I think). Also X240 onwards switched to those Intel ULV CPUs so you did not really get much more performance and if I remember correctly repairability also diminished a bit.
There were a few thinkpad models in the last decade which stood out and were you could legitimately argue that a newer model is not necessarily better in many aspects.
The X220 was one of them. Similarly, in another category, the T440p which offered an insane amount of (after some years low cost) upgrade options.
But as said, last decade, now those are just old laptops.
Was. Despite owning one, I'd rather use my 14" M1 MBP thanks. Hell if I had to have a PC I've got a much much nicer Lenovo T14 gen 3 here!
For the MBP in comparison: Better screen, performance, battery life, OS that actually mostly works, connectivity, sound. The keyboard isn't that bad either...
As for ports, I don't need 'em. Last thing I want to do is drag a fucking drunken octopus around with me.
Even as a ThinkPad fanboy this ancient ThinkPad love is getting into self-flaggelating religious drivel territory.
Call it Stockholm syndrome but IMO modern MacBooks have some of the nicest laptop keyboards around. And I'm the kind of guy who uses a custom mechanical keyboard at his desk and turns his nose up at Cherry MX switches.
They're not bad. Definitely better than the soggy ass Dell and Lenovo keyboards at least. But I would still rather have a proper keyboard with some travel. But the whole laptop experience is a compromise generally so I'm willing to live with it.
My daily driver keyboard is an Apple Magic Keyboard on my Mac mini and that's fine as well. I only use it so I don't have switch back and forth between a different keyboard and the MBP when I need to.
As for the Cherry MX, not a fan either. I tried a few over the years of different switch variants (at great cost) and they actually hurt you if you have to do some serious work on them after a while. When I say serious, a lot of my existence these days is hacking out large quantities of LaTeX and switching between that and paper. The MX boards are just too high, too noisy and too expensive.
Got to say the best keyboard I've used in recent years though is a Cherry Stream TKL. That's actually surprisingly good and very cheap (£25). It'll annoy the purists here because it's a rubber dome SX switch.
You should never go into politics's, now you made two main-group's mad, the Thinkpad lover's AND the Cherry "lovers", you now have only one minor group left who is not salty and that is the Plan9-Front who exclusively works with a 3-buttom mouse and drawterm ;)
I go between different switches but the Kailh Box series is a really solid choice and they make some great tactile switches that are IMO much nicer than MX Browns.
Eh, Cherry switches are great. I had lubed Holy Pandas and sold them to switch back to MX browns. Genuinely a much better switch for mixed usage scenarios. I can't help but be suspicious when people are against Cherry switches, because often it is just Reddit cult/meme nonsense rather than from actual usage.
Honestly the Macbook keyboard for me is just as bad as every other laptop. Thinkpads or XPS are the exact same mediocre experience you get from the the MBP.
One of my friends loathes everything Apple does (on principle, basically) and has tried several times to convince me that the ThinkPad X-series is just as good (or better) than an M-series MacBook Pro. Testing it out for a bit, there’s just no comparison. Even leaving the software aside, the hardware is just leaps and bounds better from Apple.
For many people a matte screen is non-negotible. In fact, no company would dream of selling a glossy screen mobile device until the iPhone proved that people would tolerate it.
Artists, programmers, normal people. All kinds of people.
Matte screen option was simply taken away, leaving these people with the choice of sticking to an old computer or monitor, or upgrading. I for one am content to keep my old laptop with its nice screen and keyboard, and do any heavy lifting on a different computer. It's quite easy - ssh, x11, VNC, etc.
Artists, photographers etc want colour accuracy and contrast, which is better on a glossy display (with anti glare coating).
As your entire workload is apparently developer based, knock yourself out with a matte screen but I don't want one as I do both that side of things and the art side of things...
How would an artist not want a matte screen? You don't have an option either way. It's not about want, you simply can't obtain one in a laptop these days.
You're talking rubbish. There are various grades of glossy screen and anti-glare coatings. The MBP is absolutely fine as is the Studio Display. Dell's stuff is NOT ok in contrast.
It's not about tolerating it but about the superior contrast possible and the quality of the coating, something Apple get spot on.
I have an X220 (and a bunch of other Thinkpads) and they're nice hardware but come on, let's not go overboard. Those CPUs kinda suck now. Slow performance and they run hot.
I also think people overstate the "build quality" of old ThinkPads a lot. They have a bunch of really thin plastic parts all over the place that have a tendency to crack easily. Yes, they're repairable, but they show wear a lot more than your average modern aluminium unibody machines.
As someone who used the X220 for quite a long time I can agree.
- The chassis has a bunch of weak points so build quality is not overall excellent and that shows after some time. Especially bad is that part above the screen where the antennas are mounted inside. It's made out of plastic and is only flimsily connected to the magnesium back panel at either side, if it breaks you have to replace that whole back panel.
- That Sandy Bridge CPU turned out to be an exceptionally future proof choice but after >10 years it shows its age. Even if it's fast enough for your use case, modern CPUs are just much more power efficient.
- USB 2.0 only, except on the i7 motherboard, not the most popular configuration so harder to source for a good price. Alternatively an express card can be used but did not have that good of an experience with those, also the mounting mechanism on the X220 is not sturdy enough.
- Good luck finding a proper battery pack nowadays. Even if you still find an original one, after years in storage they tend to loose capacity quite fast. Most third party ones are garbage from day one.
All very nice, but not with such dated CPU and memory.
I also have a thinkpad with archlinux, but a 10 year newer model (T14). The CPU is fine. But it also has 16GB of RAM, and I wish there was more, it doesn't even take that many firefox+chrome tabs to fill it all up.
I would never say they could be my daily driver or come close to the capabilities of today’s machines.
But for me they really have a place. For hobby and random uses they are great. For a machine to hook up to various amateur radio equipment or some arduino gizmo or to try out that random Linux distro or hobby/toy OS… In this kind of role this machine absolutely rocks.
Pretty much the same for me. I have 4 X220s (one i7) all sitting lid closed in a custom rack that I built for them. Two are running Debian, one is running Fedora, and one is running FreeBSD. All four run Plex Media Server. I use them for backups and testing/experimentation on various things.
At that time I enjoyed my X220. To be sincere, the form-factor and practicality moving from home to work and having the dock. Then the XPS 13 was more perfect for me because I could attach three external monitors and have power just via a single Thunderbolt cable (no more custom docks). The crux for all of these was the battery daily duration and replacement after a few years. In that context the MacBook Airs excel at a point that more expensive and powerful Apple notebooks such as the MacBook Pro cannot sustain a "marathon" without a charger. The issue with the Airs is that you cannot currently connect three external monitors (without doing very hacky things), but this is just a question of time. Also, this obsession from Apple about not having touch screens in notebooks because they also sell iPads is disturbing.
Finally, an XPS 13 with good battery support (assuming ARM) and good Linux power handling will, probably, be the best notebook available. (would love if they remove the XPS 13 fan and there are more non-moving part notebooks)
Nothing will ever beat the experience of my old IBM T43. The keyboard, the hardware kill switches for various things, the ports, the removal battery. Most of all I miss the keyboard, I miss it every day.
Like the author, I've found the perfect old ThinkPad for me and it works brilliantly. I have a nice efficient GNU/Linux install, all my local software runs smoothly and I've used it for my day job for 9 years.
But the damn worldwide web keeps marching on their mission to make the most bloated software in the universe. I should be able to keep using the machine forever with unchanged software, but the web demands more and more, it's running away from me.
The day we fix that issue will be great. So much less e waste. Computers were fast enough for most reasonable tasks years ago.
I blame JavaScript and the deficient culture of insanity around it. The only things that are slow on any of my computers are honking great stacks of shit built on top of browsers with JavaScript. Sometimes I have three different fucking browser engines running these stacks of shit.
People really need to actually ask the users about this. I hear lots of frustration all the time and see end users with stacks of shit that barely work but it never gets upstream because the users think that's the status quo or are so burned out that they don't care any more.
Of course various client telemetry frameworks say it sucks but if no one is complaining then of course it doesn't make business sense to optimise them and carry on making it slightly worse until someone finally does moan about it.
But everything being crap is not an excuse to keep delivering more crap.
The sites may work fine on modern computers but many don't have a modern computer. Not to mention it affects battery life either way.
> You can't run the most minimal current Linux kernel on a 30 year old laptop either.
I wouldn't bet on that after seeing what some people have done with Gentoo.
And you only need to go back 5-10 years to find devices failing to run many websites and electron apps smoothly. My old laptop has an i7 CPU from 2016 and couldn't keep up anymore. And even on my new hardware from 2022 many things feel a bit sluggish.
> You can't run the most minimal current Linux kernel on a 30 year old laptop either.
Not exactly the same, but I was able to run a fairly recent version of OpenBSD (6.x) on a 486 DX2-66 with 32MB of RAM this year. Not bad for a CPU from 1992 (32 years ago).
I blame the native world for not finding easy ways to build better alternatives. If, for example, C++ people demonstrated that they could write the same software with more ease and speed, then it would've been a no-brainer for all businesses and open source projects in the world.
As my eyes get older I need a brighter and higher resolution display. I use external monitors but like to be able to work while traveling or sitting in an easy chair sometimes. To make matters worse I like a lot of memory and a numpad. That makes it hard to find a good machine at a decent price. The high end Samsung seems to check all the boxes but it's expensive ($3K) and I've never owned one so wonder if I'd like the keyboard, etc. The Thinkpads are good but the mix of light/high resolution/numpad is not that easy to find.
man are articles like this tedious, even scrolling by them on the front page of HN annoys me and reminds me how irritating and loudmouthed so many people in this industry are.
But you don't disagree with the central claim that the X200 is the best laptop in the world, just that the idea invokes a peevish internal emotional state?
Imagine there is some company making laptops and half the power nerds out there would rather run something 10+ years old. And then, further imagine that you could capture this entire market, if you simply slapped some ports, a good keyboard, and a Trackpoint onto your laptop line, but instead you hire people to moan and bellyache when Thinkpads come up. Go look at the Thinkpad Reddit - literally half the comments are people recommending some new piece of shit craptop with a chicklet keyboard. That's not organic.
I still love mine, and I love the replaceable battery and the fact that you can still get batteries.
but best laptop in the World?
I do use mine, occasionally, it's a great work horse around the house for network things as it has an ethernet port.
but TBH I use my X1 laptops more, the ability to USB-C charge is near critical now, and the X220 lack of USB-C as well as low res screen really does mean it's not a machine of this age, it was probably the best laptop of the non-USB-C age... but now it's dated, and only has niche use.
I wanted to go this route but they were always out of stock when I went to order one a year or two ago. Instead, I bought a pigtail-style adapter from Amazon that converts the barrel jack to female USB-C PD. I like it a lot, and I can still use the stock adapter if needed. I also put a little USB-C power monitor inline with the cable, it's neat to "watch" the power going into the laptop.
For your other gripe: I modded two of my X230 to 1080p screens using a small-run add-on board and the right LCD panel from eBay. The board I got was made and sold by someone in Russia (by the name nitrocaster), so I don't know the availability with the war now (or for that matter, if he's been shipped off to the meat grinder to die pointlessly. fuck putin)
Also I personally think the keyboard topic is totally oversold. I'm quite content with the stock X230 keyboard, and I would swap in a heartbeat if I wanted to (it's two screws). And my previous laptops were T22/T60/T61, so I do know the difference.
The work by the LCDFans community, specifically the X2100 mod motherboard [0], was one of those moments that made me do the nodding guy meme IRL the fist time I saw it. Both the level of enthusiast engineering, and electronics manufacturing services available to enthusiast communities, totally blew my mind.
I love mine - I have 64gb of ddr4, a 10th gen intel i7, NVMe SSD, an incredible keyboard, a nice screen, and three interchangeable 6 hour batteries. It was my daily driver for a long time, up until very recently. If they can make a Ryzen-based one I'll be all over it.
...a bulky, heavy 13" laptop with a horrendously noisy fan, an outdated processor, no bluetooth, no camera when everything is done over video, shitty speakers, shitty 18080p 13" TN 4:3 screen, 6 hours of battery life vs 12-18 in current laptops, and so on.
I agree, what it is for me is partly a wish for computer manufacturers to create new computers like them! I.e. computers that are up-gradable, sturdy, has multiple batteries, and so forth!
Saying that if you mostly live in a terminal with a ssh connection to another machine, they'll do very well!
Thanks for sharing the link to them anyway, I at least appropriate it!
I use my X220 i7 as my daily carry laptop when I am away from my home office, and it is lovely. I have a Windows Drive, Linux Drive, I run all kinds of software. I also have a big new 16" Thinkpad and I am almost never tempted to grab it. The X220 keyboard is so much better than any modern laptop keyboard that it would be funny, if it wasn't so sad. Apple came out with the "Chiclet" keyboard and Lenovo literally flushed the Thinkpad brand down the toilet.
I stuck stubbornly to X220, mainly for travel, until a few months ago. I just could no longer tolerate the dim/low-res screen and sluggish processor. It seemed like every time I used it, it struggled with network connections and got stuck downloading a bunch of updates. I replaced it with a Surface Pro 8, which is slim, bright and perky.
But how to replace the X220 keyboard? I tried a Nuphy Air60, which has great mechanical action, but weird cheap feet that peel off and get lost, and weighs a relative ton in a backpack. Replaced that with a flimsy $10, 100g bluetooth keyboard to replicate the MacBook/XPS typing experience instead, and it’s… good enough. Literally weighs nothing, I like that.
The trackpad and “nipple” on thinkpads are awful to use. Maybe if you run full screen emacs all day and everything is a keyboard shortcut then this might seem like the best laptop in the world…
.. but I’ll die on Apple hill, clutching my 2012 aluminium i7 Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard, with it’s glorious glassy trackpad, 1000BaseT cable still connected.
Having worked with the nipple for the better part of 15 years, I disagree. Although I do appreciate and have switched to MacBook pro with their incredible touchpad, after the initial switch I had an infected tendon in my underarm.. managed to find an RSI free way of operating it, but the big plus of the nipple is the lack of motion in your wrist and arm. And your hand is very close to typing position as well.
It does take a while to become fast and precise, but when I was, it worked wonderful.
The thing that really sold me on the utility of the nipple was trying to use a laptop while riding in a car on a rough road.
Up till then I mostly ignored it, mainly because I was used to trackpads. but that stupid red wart on my keyboard turned the experience from massively frustrating to actually usable.
So a niche use case to be sure. but it is definitely a feature I look for now.
See also: trying to use a touch screen in a moving vehicle.
Trackpoint is brilliant, you can leave your fingers on the home row. I don't see how anybody could use a trackpad after using a trackpoint for a couple days, which is all it takes to get used to one.
still waiting for apple to release a 11-12 inch macbook with an M processor, nice screen,keyboard and touchpad. I mean something the size of a surface go. It's not for everyday use for sure (maybe only if you use a bigger display). But too often I want to bring a laptop with me and even the M1 MBA feels too heavy compared to my Surface Go 2. Even with a slower processor, I would take the surface just because it's so light, eventually I can take a dongle/hub from anker/other brands to have both a lite 'laptop' and a ton of ports
I sit here, using X61s, compiling stuff, listening to music, writing code and articles, no care in the world, comfy as a kitten. I think being comfortable with less is my superpower.
Oh, how I loved that keyboard and form factor - only the 2 GB RAM limit was a little too tight for technical work, but a great office laptop at the time!
Don't most laptops need a branded power adapter nowadays? I know my Lenovo can just take any pd charger and I use a tiny 65 w one but my friend can't use anything like that on his Dell.
When a technical friend asks me what laptop to buy, I tell them to buy a used Lenovo Thinkpad amd rebuild it to fit their desires. Then I explain the differences in the many product lines of ThinkPads.
When a non-technical friend asks me what laptop to buy, I pause, and eventually yell them to buy a used Lenovo Thinkpad.
I feel that any laptop that doesn't have at least a thunderbolt port is obsolete in this day and age.
It's not the port itself, it's just a handy way for me to determine a cut-off for when a laptop is too old, green m&m style. If it doesn't have a thunderbolt port, it's probably missing other necessary features I might require too.
my current laptop (X230T) doesn't have one and it works fine, I love the little thing, but my next laptop will definitely have one. I feel you need to have at least one foot in the current world.
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[ 1.6 ms ] story [ 58.3 ms ] threadhttps://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3700.htm
(Edit: old commercial Unix person. I never liked GNU stuff. Sorry!)
glad to see there's not even an attempt to defend this.
Yeah I'll pass. But for sure you have extremely useful VGA port if you want to burn your eyes with CRTs.
The primary use case for that VGA port was projectors installed in conference rooms. At its time in many cases the only thing you got was some VGA cable.
My current gen P14s has awful keyboard keys. There's barely any travel whatsoever so while I agree with your premise, things really did used to be better...
Hot swappable batteries on the X240 was quite the rush
I agree with that one, those models had their build quality issues and for today's standards they are simply outdated overall.
> Just wait, eventually the X230 and X240 will be called "some of the greatest thinkpads ever made, built like tanks".
I don't think so for those models. The X230 is more or less just a refresh of the X220, except for the "new" keyboard. The X240 had no physical trackpoint buttons but instead that universally hated "clickpad" (did only last one generation I think). Also X240 onwards switched to those Intel ULV CPUs so you did not really get much more performance and if I remember correctly repairability also diminished a bit.
There were a few thinkpad models in the last decade which stood out and were you could legitimately argue that a newer model is not necessarily better in many aspects. The X220 was one of them. Similarly, in another category, the T440p which offered an insane amount of (after some years low cost) upgrade options.
But as said, last decade, now those are just old laptops.
For the MBP in comparison: Better screen, performance, battery life, OS that actually mostly works, connectivity, sound. The keyboard isn't that bad either...
As for ports, I don't need 'em. Last thing I want to do is drag a fucking drunken octopus around with me.
Even as a ThinkPad fanboy this ancient ThinkPad love is getting into self-flaggelating religious drivel territory.
They're not bad. Definitely better than the soggy ass Dell and Lenovo keyboards at least. But I would still rather have a proper keyboard with some travel. But the whole laptop experience is a compromise generally so I'm willing to live with it.
My daily driver keyboard is an Apple Magic Keyboard on my Mac mini and that's fine as well. I only use it so I don't have switch back and forth between a different keyboard and the MBP when I need to.
As for the Cherry MX, not a fan either. I tried a few over the years of different switch variants (at great cost) and they actually hurt you if you have to do some serious work on them after a while. When I say serious, a lot of my existence these days is hacking out large quantities of LaTeX and switching between that and paper. The MX boards are just too high, too noisy and too expensive.
Got to say the best keyboard I've used in recent years though is a Cherry Stream TKL. That's actually surprisingly good and very cheap (£25). It'll annoy the purists here because it's a rubber dome SX switch.
(I currently use Cherry MX browns, interested to learn what's better since I thought non-cherry switches were bootleggy)
Honestly the Macbook keyboard for me is just as bad as every other laptop. Thinkpads or XPS are the exact same mediocre experience you get from the the MBP.
One of my friends loathes everything Apple does (on principle, basically) and has tried several times to convince me that the ThinkPad X-series is just as good (or better) than an M-series MacBook Pro. Testing it out for a bit, there’s just no comparison. Even leaving the software aside, the hardware is just leaps and bounds better from Apple.
> hardware is just leaps and bounds better from Apple.
Dollar for dollar comparison? Not my experience.
I disagree. I own two M2 MB pros: 14" and 16" and a T14 gen2 with a 4K display. T4 display is definitely better, for starter it's matte.
Only place where MB shines is battery life. Even track-pads on newer Lenovos are decent.
Matte screen option was simply taken away, leaving these people with the choice of sticking to an old computer or monitor, or upgrading. I for one am content to keep my old laptop with its nice screen and keyboard, and do any heavy lifting on a different computer. It's quite easy - ssh, x11, VNC, etc.
As your entire workload is apparently developer based, knock yourself out with a matte screen but I don't want one as I do both that side of things and the art side of things...
It's not about tolerating it but about the superior contrast possible and the quality of the coating, something Apple get spot on.
I also think people overstate the "build quality" of old ThinkPads a lot. They have a bunch of really thin plastic parts all over the place that have a tendency to crack easily. Yes, they're repairable, but they show wear a lot more than your average modern aluminium unibody machines.
- The chassis has a bunch of weak points so build quality is not overall excellent and that shows after some time. Especially bad is that part above the screen where the antennas are mounted inside. It's made out of plastic and is only flimsily connected to the magnesium back panel at either side, if it breaks you have to replace that whole back panel.
- That Sandy Bridge CPU turned out to be an exceptionally future proof choice but after >10 years it shows its age. Even if it's fast enough for your use case, modern CPUs are just much more power efficient.
- USB 2.0 only, except on the i7 motherboard, not the most popular configuration so harder to source for a good price. Alternatively an express card can be used but did not have that good of an experience with those, also the mounting mechanism on the X220 is not sturdy enough.
- Good luck finding a proper battery pack nowadays. Even if you still find an original one, after years in storage they tend to loose capacity quite fast. Most third party ones are garbage from day one.
I also have a thinkpad with archlinux, but a 10 year newer model (T14). The CPU is fine. But it also has 16GB of RAM, and I wish there was more, it doesn't even take that many firefox+chrome tabs to fill it all up.
I would never say they could be my daily driver or come close to the capabilities of today’s machines.
But for me they really have a place. For hobby and random uses they are great. For a machine to hook up to various amateur radio equipment or some arduino gizmo or to try out that random Linux distro or hobby/toy OS… In this kind of role this machine absolutely rocks.
Finally, an XPS 13 with good battery support (assuming ARM) and good Linux power handling will, probably, be the best notebook available. (would love if they remove the XPS 13 fan and there are more non-moving part notebooks)
Team Ultrabay, represent.
But the damn worldwide web keeps marching on their mission to make the most bloated software in the universe. I should be able to keep using the machine forever with unchanged software, but the web demands more and more, it's running away from me.
The day we fix that issue will be great. So much less e waste. Computers were fast enough for most reasonable tasks years ago.
You can't run the most minimal current Linux kernel on a 30 year old laptop either.
Of course various client telemetry frameworks say it sucks but if no one is complaining then of course it doesn't make business sense to optimise them and carry on making it slightly worse until someone finally does moan about it.
But everything being crap is not an excuse to keep delivering more crap.
> You can't run the most minimal current Linux kernel on a 30 year old laptop either.
I wouldn't bet on that after seeing what some people have done with Gentoo.
And you only need to go back 5-10 years to find devices failing to run many websites and electron apps smoothly. My old laptop has an i7 CPU from 2016 and couldn't keep up anymore. And even on my new hardware from 2022 many things feel a bit sluggish.
Not exactly the same, but I was able to run a fairly recent version of OpenBSD (6.x) on a 486 DX2-66 with 32MB of RAM this year. Not bad for a CPU from 1992 (32 years ago).
Writing a Python application isn't that hard, but your frontend dev will more than likely be experienced in JS than Python+QT and push for that.
Vala could have been great as a way of making C more accessible, shame it didnt really pick up.
but best laptop in the World?
I do use mine, occasionally, it's a great work horse around the house for network things as it has an ethernet port.
but TBH I use my X1 laptops more, the ability to USB-C charge is near critical now, and the X220 lack of USB-C as well as low res screen really does mean it's not a machine of this age, it was probably the best laptop of the non-USB-C age... but now it's dated, and only has niche use.
https://www.tindie.com/products/mikepdiy/lenovo-charging-por...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07PJ3J5MY/ref=pe_27063361_48705...
which is absolutely fantastic.
What you are looking for is a USB-C with PD support, which means that the devices can negotiate the amount of power that is being sent!
Also I personally think the keyboard topic is totally oversold. I'm quite content with the stock X230 keyboard, and I would swap in a heartbeat if I wanted to (it's two screws). And my previous laptops were T22/T60/T61, so I do know the difference.
I love mine - I have 64gb of ddr4, a 10th gen intel i7, NVMe SSD, an incredible keyboard, a nice screen, and three interchangeable 6 hour batteries. It was my daily driver for a long time, up until very recently. If they can make a Ryzen-based one I'll be all over it.
[0]: https://www.xyte.ch/shop/x2100-pricing/
...a bulky, heavy 13" laptop with a horrendously noisy fan, an outdated processor, no bluetooth, no camera when everything is done over video, shitty speakers, shitty 18080p 13" TN 4:3 screen, 6 hours of battery life vs 12-18 in current laptops, and so on.
Fool, money, etc.
That said, I would hope no one would read this article and think an x220 is actually a good computer for most modern uses.
Saying that if you mostly live in a terminal with a ssh connection to another machine, they'll do very well!
Thanks for sharing the link to them anyway, I at least appropriate it!
But how to replace the X220 keyboard? I tried a Nuphy Air60, which has great mechanical action, but weird cheap feet that peel off and get lost, and weighs a relative ton in a backpack. Replaced that with a flimsy $10, 100g bluetooth keyboard to replicate the MacBook/XPS typing experience instead, and it’s… good enough. Literally weighs nothing, I like that.
.. but I’ll die on Apple hill, clutching my 2012 aluminium i7 Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard, with it’s glorious glassy trackpad, 1000BaseT cable still connected.
It does take a while to become fast and precise, but when I was, it worked wonderful.
Up till then I mostly ignored it, mainly because I was used to trackpads. but that stupid red wart on my keyboard turned the experience from massively frustrating to actually usable.
So a niche use case to be sure. but it is definitely a feature I look for now.
See also: trying to use a touch screen in a moving vehicle.
~: free -m total used free shared buff/cache available Mem: 2946 1736 101 271 1575 1210
However, the resolution is horrible (1366x768), the CPU is slow, it's heavy, mine has no USB3 and the charger is quite bulky.
That's easily fixable nowadays for laptops needing up to 100W, you can buy some USB-C adapter and use a modern GaN charger.
When a non-technical friend asks me what laptop to buy, I pause, and eventually yell them to buy a used Lenovo Thinkpad.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38257284#38262457
I feel that any laptop that doesn't have at least a thunderbolt port is obsolete in this day and age.
It's not the port itself, it's just a handy way for me to determine a cut-off for when a laptop is too old, green m&m style. If it doesn't have a thunderbolt port, it's probably missing other necessary features I might require too.
my current laptop (X230T) doesn't have one and it works fine, I love the little thing, but my next laptop will definitely have one. I feel you need to have at least one foot in the current world.
Maybe 1080p screens? if it has a 1366x768 panel, it needs to burn in a fire.